


Like Llanview on Steroids

by florahart



Category: Red White & Royal Blue - Casey McQuiston
Genre: Accidentally making everything worse which this time is not Alex's fault, Alex swears like he's being paid by the word but he has legit reasons, Alex's life is a soap opera what the fuck, All Alex wants to do is love Henry, M/M, Paparazzi, Philip Fox-Mountchristen-Windsor is kind of a jerk, Post-Canon, eavesdropping reporters, fertility/pregnancy, not actually kidfic, not actually pregnancy fic, secret child (not Alex or Henry's), shocking lack of porn, snowballing media nightmare as per Alex/Henry usual
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-12-25
Updated: 2019-12-25
Packaged: 2021-02-27 00:07:24
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 8,739
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/21817780
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/florahart/pseuds/florahart
Summary: All Alex wants to do is pass Property Law, love Henry, and maybe have some nice waffles and be periodically distracted by royal sex.  This does not seem unreasonable.  And then the media circus commences. Again.  Damn it.  Why is his life a soap opera?
Relationships: Alex Claremont-Diaz/Henry Fox-Mountchristen-Windsor
Comments: 46
Kudos: 284
Collections: Yuletide 2019





	Like Llanview on Steroids

**Author's Note:**

  * For [AirgiodSLV](https://archiveofourown.org/users/AirgiodSLV/gifts).



> I'm not sure I accomplished the request to show something that further illuminates Alex and Henry's relationship, but I did give you a day (a ridiculous one but what other kind do they have, most of the time), post-canon. 
> 
> Llanview, for reference, is the fictional locale of the soap _One Life to Live_ ; Port Charles is the setting for _General Hospital_
> 
> I think there is nothing in the tags that is likely to be distressing, but there's an endnote about some of them anyway.

Alex isn’t sure when his life barreled off the tracks and directly into a new soap opera called Crazytown, but sometimes it’s a bit much.

(No, he knows when: it was when his mom became a serious contender for, and then the Democratic nominee for, and then the actual, US President, but this does not change the “bit much” factor at all.) 

Obviously, there are things about it all that he loves. Among other things, being a First Son got him invited to a royal wedding got him a drunken faceplant into a cake got him a months-long emotional roller coaster turned charade turned true love adventure and all, so like, that’s cool? But still, today has moved firmly into Bit Much Territory, and it’s stressful, is what.

(So now it’s, like, _International_ Crazytown and includes things like crown princes, addiction and recovery, and a crankypants homophobic elderly queen. Gah. He did, but did not, sign up for this nonsense. He doesn’t even get anything useful out of the good ratings this probably makes for all the entertainment newsmags and news-adjacent programming.)

But how did _this_ particular tangle of tomfoolery even come up, and why are there cameras on the lawn again? Why is his mother here directing traffic? Why is _June_ here, working on a statement for him? And why is Henry looking like he’s going to have to murder people and/or subsume his own needs for the good of the cause again, neither of which Alex wants to be how the week ends.

So let’s back up maybe a couple of hours and take it from the top.

\--

Alex is studying.

Law school, it turns out, is fucking insane. It’s not that he can’t do the work, and it’s not like a huge proportion of it isn’t right up his alley in a dozen ways. But the competitiveness aspect is …Alex has some opinions. He’s okay, but he has, he thinks the officially-recognized term is, “a shit ton” of privilege on his side: 

1\. He knows probably eighty percent of the US Senate (and they know him, more to the point).  
2\. He has spent literally hundreds of hours sitting in spaces where detailed arguments as to the constitutionality and ethics of various awesome, ordinary, and deeply shitty bills were being hammered out by incredibly smart people (some of whom were not using their powers for good, seriously, but like, that’s not the point?), and,  
3\. He’s been in a position to _hold_ a lot of those arguments with _his mother, the president_ , whose child-rearing philosophy was always skewed hardassward. She never let him win an argument without a solid grounding, not even when he was five and the argument was about whether he could get a pet penguin (he did not win, because he was not able to demonstrate that maintaining an appropriate and humane penguin habitat in Texas was within his authority and ability; probably his mom was right about that). 

Anyway. So law school is more of that, and he’s currently riding around sixth or seventh in his class depending on how Brooks Welling does on any given essay, and he’s working on being okay with that because it would be deeply unreasonable to expect eternal firstness, right? But goddamn, kids who look like him, kids whose socioeconomic backgrounds don’t include hobnobbing with heads of state, kids with learning issues? They _can_ be great lawyers, but largely _can’t_ tolerate the day to day cutthroat features of the educational experience and have to claw their way up from fifth-rate schools and cobbled-together internships and it’s bullshit.

Fixing this, somehow, although he hasn't figured out what that would look like in a world in which law school policy is fundamentally not in the purview of legislators, is on his list for when, eventually, he runs for congress. Which he is definitely still doing. He doesn’t think the country is going to be ready for a foreign prince as the First Gentleman any time in the next thirty years, but he’s pretty sure his own district will give exactly zero shits, and he’ll start local anyway. In thirty years he’ll be the right age to run for president anyway, so there’s time.

But all of that is not yet, and the point is anyway, he has a list for when it's time, and it has other things on it too but this one of the things. 

For right _now_ , though, he’s studying. Cramming. He’s been at it for almost three hours, and it’s almost time for a break because actually he started reviewing at sunup and Henry makes him stand up and walk around and eat something every three hours (or, let’s be real, stand up, kiss Henry, get sidetracked, spend an hour in bed doing things that are only related to law school in that in recent decades lawyers have argued to make them legal in every state because sexuality should not determine eligibility for intimacy, motherfuckers, and then snooze for half an hour before having a snack or, okay, it's almost five now so maybe it'll be dinner, and then getting back to it), and he’s deeply engrossed in how to connect this property law nonsense to racial justice stuff in a way that is supportable and has valid precedents when his phone rings.

The fact it rings means it’s one of seven people, of whom one is upstairs, so it’s probably important, but it takes him several rings to remember that, and then it stops and then it starts again and also there is knocking at the door and he picks up the phone and walks to the door and says hello and turns the knob and Nora says, in his ear and also to his face, “Are you sitting down?”

“Um. No?”

Then she waves her hand and ends the call but walks in, forcing him to walk backwards and then his phone is ringing again. It’s his mom.

Nora grabs the phone and says, “Yeah, no, don’t answer that.”

Alex’s brain is still picking away at inheritance taxation and also, he trusts Nora implicitly, so he sends his mother to voicemail.

Fuckity. He is going to hear about that. Loudly. Probably with charts.

Nora takes the phone and turns it off, like actualfacts off, and keeps walking. “So, there’s a thing.”

Finally, Alex’s brain engages. “Is everyone okay?”

“Yes, it’s not that kind of, like. Everyone is fine.”

“Good, but like, my mother is going to probably murder me with, with, what are phones made of? Magnets? Are magnets involved? She's going to murder me with magnets and data and some of those old-school coily cables that the country probably has a million of in surplus because everyone went cellular.”

“What? Also, I don't think magnets are heavily involved, no. I don't think. What?”

“For hanging up on her. She will find a related way to murder me. Fine. Microwaves and, like, batteries. And still data and the coily cable for strangling.”

“Yeah, but you don’t want to be giving her a half-assed answer to the question she’s going to ask, and June is at a movie with that California boy so she can’t call _her_ because she was not raised by wolves and her phone is also off.”

“You are officially freaking me out. Also, Mom wants to talk to us and isn't getting anyone? Shit. We’re _all_ going to die messily. Note to self, invest in industrial bleach and solvents.” 

“No, she wants to talk to _you_ , but June might reach you first? But either way—"

Just then, Alex hears Henry’s phone ringing on the stairs, and Henry is stepping into the room saying, “Hullo, Ellen. How are—”

Nora makes the slashing gestures and shakes her head, and Henry, because he is much, much smoother than Alex and also is well aware that Nora can be terrifying, says, “Oh! Oh, dear. Small, er, kitchen fire, we’re fine, I’ll call you back,” and ends the call. “What’s wrong?”

“Just turn off your phone real quick. There's a situation.”

Henry arches one of those perfect eyebrows at her and makes the royal expression of preparedness to square his shoulders and do what needs must, the expression that both breaks and melts Alex a little, but he turns off the phone and sets it on the entryway table, then gives her his full attention, looking as though he fully expects he’s going to have to make great personal sacrifices to save western culture. Again.

Alex loves him a lot for all of who he is including the self-sacrificing idiot part, but he's not letting him have that feeling again, so he says, "It's nothing dire, right? Like, we aren't going to have to choose the 12 people to fit in a rocket to Mars to repopulate humanity after a giant asteroid or whatever, right?"

"Uh, no, but we'd need more than 12 to be pretty sure of a stable gene pool and plus like, no 12 people know enough about nukes and astrophysics and interplanetary geology to--"

" _Nora!_ "

"And that doesn’t even start on the philosophical question of what it would mean to survive but lose culture, because I mean, 12—”

“Nora, oh my _God_ , just. What is _happening_?” Alex knows better than to let her get too far into the 12 people problem, ugh, he shouldn’t have brought it up.

“Sorry, I had to finish. No, it's not the end of the world as we know it or, like, Russian invasions to be repelled by teenagers. Also, not global. thermonuclear. war, slash tic-tac-toe, so like, eighties disasters: all not it. It's just a situation. That is causing small international social distress and for which you want a good answer before you deal with your mom. Is all."

So yes, that was true of the entire cake episode and no one took away his phone for that, so none of this sequence seems ominous _at all_. Alex sighs and moves them the rest of the way into the living room and flops down on the couch. “ _Now_ I’m sitting down. So. Just tell me,” he says. “What is going on that is this social international catastrophe so epic you made my mother put out a contract on my life?”

Nora opens her mouth, then closes is, then says, “Maybe Henry should sit down, too?” Henry goes a little pale(r), but her eyes soften. “No one’s died, H. It’s just a PR thing. I assume.”

“You assume?”

“So, okay. You’re working on kids? To have them, I mean. Your kids.”

Alex blinks. “We whatnow?” It’s true, they are, but only in broad terms. Like, yes but after law school, is where they are with this, and he still has a year and a half to go. Starting now would be significantly too soon, unless someone has come up with a way to make pregnancy only half as inconvenient in exchange for twice as long or something.

Probably that would have made the papers. 

Well, all right, he's in law school so he probably wouldn't have read about it if it had because the science section isn't his first port of journalistic call, but he knows people. Someone would have clued him in.

“Come on, Alex. I’ve heard you talk about it. About the whole, royal bloodline, propriety, surrogacy problem.”

“In principle, yes, since there’s a lot to be worked out but raising little blond Spanish-speaking polo-playing blue-eyed hellions from Texas and London sounds pretty great?”

“You can’t guarantee blondness,” Henry puts in. 

Alex turns to him. “Shut up, I’d be equally happy with any other combination of us that is mostly you, but—”

Nora butts back in. “Alex, focus. So I want to say I’m only asking you this because I have seen you do stupider things: are you accomplishing this by fucking Bea? Because the Mail and the TMZ are both--”

Alex learns that ‘seeing red’ is not just a phrase. He literally feels the air turn scarlet and tastes a fleeting instant of something sharp and bloody. He puts away this new information for some time that is not right now, and glares at her. “What.” It’s all he can make his mouth say that is not some kind of like ancient-religion curse that will make her explode for the audacity, which he is restraining only because they have a decade of friendship on which she is now leaning heavily.

“Okay, so that’s a no, but you see why I don’t want you unprepared for the momgrilling. They have pregnancy tests in Bea’s trash and pictures of you, Alex, visiting her alone during the thing last month and laughing on the couch and in the kitchen in your underwear because apparently you do not know how to wear a robe or close the curtains, and also two months ago she was here for the gala and Henry spent that one night dealing with the whole--”

“But seriously, _this_ is turning into another international incident focused on my dick? How is this my _life_?” Alex tries to decide if any of this is serious enough that Nora actually needed to keep him from his mom, although anything that precludes him swearing as many swears as he is thinking at her is probably for the best? But he should just go ahead and call her back. Except, Henry. 

Henry has his face in his hands, elbows on his knees. He moans. “Why must they… god damn it.” When he looks up, Alex bites his lip because it would probably be inappropriate to jump him right now in the middle of Scandal Number …what are they on, Twelve? And also Nora doesn’t need to see that. But the I Could Be King And Behead People look is one that makes Alex very, very weak in the knees.

He feels that probably more than two years into this relationship he should have developed some sort of immunity to the ways in which Henry makes him incompetent at, like, safely existing, but so far, no dice. Weak in the knees it is.

At least he’s already sitting down. He should call his mom. He reaches for his phone.

“No,” Henry is saying, “No, Alex is not fucking Bea, and I am personally insulted on behalf of all sides of the family here up to and including my long-deceased father and the grandmother who would feel that was at least the correct plumbing for royal reproduction.”

“Hey, I said I was asking because there have been equally stupid stories that are true, and like, there’s a grain of sense in the concept. Obviously in a _you would be in on the whole thing_ kind of way because royal blood, no keeping a surrogate quiet, no dealing with awful IVF or whatever, kind of way.”

“Oh, no, that part makes sense and it’s one of the reasons we’ve considered asking Bea to carry for us,” Alex says, waiting for his phone to power back on, “and it’s not like there’s not a long history of using turkey basters for insemination without involving the medical community, but—”

This is when the Secret Service breaks down their door.

Alex leans into Henry while Amy clears the room and David yelps at all the invaders and hides under both their calves against the couch. Fleetingly, he wishes his life were only as simple as property law and what to order for supper. Also, as long as everything is insane and he can’t do anything because the Secret Service takes everything very seriously and his phone is so fucking full of notifications he just turns the fucking thing right back off, he tells Nora that even if at some point he and Henry come to an arrangement in which either of them is actually boning a third party, he’s not interested in sex that doesn’t involve Henry, and that would make the whole Bea angle extremely far past the socially-acceptable incestuousness of the royal line in general. Henry scowls at him, but it’s a lighter scowl than the expression he’d been wearing, so Alex is counting this as a win.

\--

Ellen Claremont has not stopped speaking, loudly, for long enough for anyone to draw up the bullet points of the situation since she arrived thirty minutes after a very apologetic Amy radioed in that they were fine, but they’ve managed to get a few words in edgewise and if anything, this is making her irritation about failures of security and international scandals and whatever all else worse.

Alex isn’t sure why she’s so mad. The prospect of grandbabies is one she has waxed poetic about many times, and so if this is really a question of the papers getting the idea they might be procreating, the concept of moving in that direction should be good? Shouldn’t it? But she’s super pissed? Maybe she’s just venting. Still.

He also hasn’t gotten a valid explanation of why taking down the door was required. They have a presence outside all the time. That presence knew they were here alone, until Nora, who is also a person well inside the bounds of allowed humans, so unless they thought Nora came in with a pipe bomb or something, just, why. Now the neighbors are milling around outside and this is _not_ going to die down in 24 hours.

Wait, maybe that’s why. Maybe she’s— “Mom, did you have them break the door down and come in here to shout for half an hour so the papers would have a different story?”

She scowls. “Maybe.” 

This explains why eighty percent of this one-sided conversation has been about security protocols. 

The team dispatched to replace the molding and fix up the door frame leans in. “Hello?”

Henry takes a deep breath and goes to direct them and be polite and make them feel all warm and welcomed, because that’s better than being shouted at some more. And, Alex knows, because he can't help himself; being classy is both innate and extremely trained into him, and aside from their own early interactions, which he now understands was Henry desperately trying not to be epically publicly internationally gay at him, grace and courtesy are deeply a part of who he is. 

“Diaz,” Ellen says as soon as Henry clears the doorway, “why can’t you and your admittedly handsome ass stay the hell out of the news for one goddamned minute?”

“Special skill, and also my ass is not for your consumption,” Alex says. He picks up his phone and turns it back on but doesn’t turn it over until the dozens (hundreds?) of alerts stop buzzing. He opens the list and tilts his head. “It’s kind of …partly working, storming the ...well, Henry lives here, so storming the castle. Although I think it’s making you look slightly bananapants crazy so you’re going to need to pivot pretty soon.”

“Why? Nothing to run for in a year, so if I wanna bring my bananapants out—"

“Also: aren’t you in the middle of that Asia thing?”

“I am, and damn it that is actually a good reason, but we’d just broken for the day when my team notified me of the issue.”

“Of Nora visiting me dangerously?”

“No, smartass. Of the papers. What’s actually going on?”

“Fuck if _I_ know!” Alex shakes his head. “I’m over here in the middle of regressive tax code! I am not—I can’t believe I have to clarify or verify this for anyone—secretly banging my fiancé’s sister from thousands of miles away while living a life surrounded by wannabe muckraking amateur documentarians every fucking minute of the day what the entire fuck.”

"Well, that's something, then, Sugar."

"It's everything, technically, since there is literally no story here, but like, don't you think it would have been simpler all around to ignore this bullshit? Like, Henry's my forever and we have established this in all the ways and for fuck's sake I never asked to be the poster child for queer biracial international relationship opportunities but I get to be it anyway so if I plan to do anything to disrupt that I like to think I'd do better than this anyway. More panache, less skeeze. Jesus."

His mother is laughing at him, so at least she’s done being mad, but he’s not that excited about being laughed at, either.

Well, his point stands. He is sometimes an idiot, but he's a go big or go home idiot, and sneaking around in the way the papers are suggesting is, like, not a thing he would do. Not for something that wasn't forever. 

Shut up, sure, he snuck around with Henry before he figured out it was forever, but that doesn't count, because it _was_.

 _Any_ way.

Finally, his mom shakes her head at him. "Well, we're going to need to say something."

"We're not, in fact," Henry says, standing in the doorway. 

"Oh?" And Alex is possibly never going to get over the fact that his mother, while she doesn't exactly _defer_ to Henry, when they disagree, she still affords him a very peculiar head-of-state-esque standing that Alex is never going to rate.

"Oh. I'll call Bea, and she'll tell a story of her own, which she might have already devised because she's at least as accustomed to the horrors of the tabloid press as we are, but we are definitely not explaining what is actually happening because it's not our secret to maintain or manage."

Alex watches them both, and for a minute he thinks his mom is going to do the thing, where she asks question after question until everyone agrees with her because their heads are going to explode, but Henry has the look of Definite Beheadings about him, and Alex is pretty sure he won't be answering anything anyway, even if it hurts him by hurting his relationship with his effective mother in law.

Also, Alex is definitely taking Henry to bed or, okay, to any available surface that vaguely includes horizontalness as soon as his mother leaves because nnngh Authoritative Henry.

The question of who will be calling Bea is rendered moot when Alex’s phone rings again.

It still has to be one of seven people, but now three of them are present, so that narrows the pool. And Pez, honestly, would probably call Henry in the first place, so. 

It's June. Who has left her movie after Bea sent Zahra to get her, because she couldn't reach anyone else and Zahra said there was an 'issue' at Henry and Alex's home. June, it seems, has gotten the whole tabloid story from Bea who got it from a friend who knows someone at the _Mail_ and can at least warn her, and is already 100% on top of the situation, obviously. Bea and June are both super pissed and laughing at Alex's life, because of course.

The California boy has been sent home to finish the evening alone, a fact for which Alex is informed is going to owe June because apparently his dick is extremely worth her time.

The level of information regarding this he now possesses is only slightly this side of the line previously established re: royalty, incestuousness, and propriety.

Bea, June reports, is ‘not particularly fussed’ about the resurgence of obnoxious media types on her lawn, probably because she has literally nothing to hide this time and that's way better than previous instances.

Although, as Alex also has literally nothing to hide and this is bringing Shitstorm Volume Eight to his front fucking door, it does seem a little unfair.

\--

It's nine at night and their house is now, officially, a fucking zoo, and here is the point at which Alex stops to wonder why his life has descended into International Crazytown, like Llanview on steroids or Port Charles in spaaaace. Ugh.

June shows up just a few minutes after she calls, and Alex's mom is still there, and Dad is on the phone and on his way because he’s in Philly anyway for some kind of ag conference to do with working conditions (?) and also Henry's mother in on Skype and the two moms are arguing about which of them has been more greatly impugned by this latest nonsense. All of this is happening in the living room. 

For. Fuck's. Sake.

All Alex wants to do it close the door, with everyone but Henry on the other side of it, and try to catch a nap or something. He makes do with steering them into the space the real estate lady said was a “breakfast nook,” which has a table for eating, but also and more importantly a window seat that’s cozier than it should be for being next to chilly New York glass and which Alex likes sitting in for sunshine purposes because unlike his English boyfriend who thrives on chilly gloom, he is from Texas, thanks. David, who is still distressed from all the goings-on, pads in after them and flops down with an exhausted doggy huffsnort under the little table in the nook.

“So what _is_ really going on?” He asks Henry quietly, sitting down. 

June, who failed to stay in the living room, raises her eyebrows at Henry. “Wait, he actually doesn’t know why they have what they have?”

“It’s not. my. story. to. tell,” Henry says. “Why do _you_ know?”

“Big sisters of extremely high-profile history-making royal gay icons have to stay in touch. Obviously.”

“But it’s also not Bea’s.”

June rolls her eyes. “Henry, I like that you’re protective—”

“So do I, for the record,” Alex says. He leans in against Henry’s shoulder until Henry picks up the arm and wraps it around him, letting him fall forward onto his chest a little. Henry’s hand comes up off Alex’s shoulder and the fingers scritch in his hair, massaging his scalp, and Alex thinks before he drags him to bed, he’s dragging him into the shower so they have an extra reason to touch each other all over because it feels amazing.

“—But this is a girl thing, and like, sister code has some rules of which you might not be aware.”

“It’s a girl thing?” Nora comes back from the kitchen and unerringly turns into the nook with a tray of extremely necessary drinks.

“There are pregnancy tests involved. While not _only_ girls can be pregnant, still, the culture around the topic is pretty deeply engaged with femininity.”

“Good point.” Nora hands Alex a drink, which involves twists of lemon and lime and blue liquor and, he sips, and rum and cranberry juice? It’s purple and citrusy and makes him a little cross-eyed at the proportion of alcohol. Obviously, because Nora never thinks the recipe is adequately boozy. Henry cadges it and takes a sip as well.

Henry sighs. “Martha’s dealing with stupid levels of Palace Concerns, and I do hope you heard me give that word its proper degree of authority and officiousness, regarding the criticality of producing heirs who will make a nice straight, word choice deliberate, line from Philip with no diversions into addiction or deviancy.”

“Please tell me Philip has gotten a vasectomy in protest,” Nora says. “It’s the only right thing to do. But…” She chews on her lip. “But it’s Philip, so I guess no.”

“And you would be right. Philip is very concerned that he correctly produce very proper children promptly and frequently because his advanced age of thirty and Martha’s of twenty-eight is of course of great concern.”

June picks up. “So there’s a royal doctor, obviously, but for once Martha’s found a spine and she’s refusing to deal with letting the old codger get his hands on her cooch every week.”

“You’d think people who care about lineages would feel kind of grossed out by some old codger being in the prospective queen’s knickers on a regular basis,” Alex says.

“The selection process for royal physician is somewhat dissuasive of any sort of… pants shenanigans,” Henry explains. “But while my grandmother is cool with the codger and the cooch, and please reassure me all of you would never record me saying that phrase on the basis that data is never secure, Martha is apparently not, and Mom and Bea are helping her.”

Alex sees the situation now. “And so she visits Bea, does pregnancy tests…”

“Exactly.”

“Okay, so does it help her more if we let everyone think yes, I am fucking Bea? Because it _is_ sort of like, believable in principle, in the sense that I have been known to have sex with women, and I am _deeply_ fucking opposed to anyone tolerating unnecessary-slash-unwanted pussy patrols.”

Henry looks at him. “Probably, but I feel there must be a better solution. As I, perhaps selfishly, would like to not endure the media shitstorm that would accompany such an announcement, because it would include both me being cuckolded and you being a slut, and I’ve something of an allergy to either of those things.”

Alex shrugs. “Good point. It would suck on toast for Bea, too, although I think she also gives zero fucks. Side benefit of having been the object of a lot of bullshit, I guess.”

“Subject, I think,” Henry says absently, scratching some more. “But no, it would be terrible all around even once the whole story came out.”

“Maybe it’s Philip’s fault,” June says. “I mean, are we sure he knows how? Do we need to send Mom in with her Planned Parenthood brochures? We know she was willing to sit _you_ down when you were literally old enough to buy beer to explain about how when two penises love each other very much--”

Alex flips her off. “I hate you. Also, I _do not_ volunteer to ask Philip if he knows how to locate the female sex organ.”

Henry squeezes Alex’s shoulder. “Given how many times he tried to help me understand how to not avoid them, I think we’re in the clear on that front, but I actually don’t know whether anyone has checked that he’s healthy, and as much as I would not wish unhappiness on even him, there would be a certain fairly delicious irony, wouldn’t there?”

Nora shakes her head. “Nah, it’s not that. I’m pretty sure he has a kid already.” There is a long tense pause after this and she chews on her lip. “I mean, um.”

“What.” Henry’s tone is dead flat, and Alex looks up at his jaw, which is squeezed tight. David whines at his feet and crawls up on the couch.

“No, I mean, I don’t think anyone knows about it, but when I was looking into, you know, _everything_ because you two were super unprecedented and all? I am pretty sure he has a kid that’s like, six or so? Then. Older now, obviously. I mean, also I suck at guessing how old the little munchkins are so maybe he's ten? I have no idea. But obviously I am not sharing that with the papers.”

Henry’s jaw, if anything, squeezes impossibly tighter, and he grits out, “If you’re right, then every fucking lecture he ever—I might have to murder him. It might be the only option. My poor mother, losing both sons so violently. I hope Bea’s ready to ascend to the throne.”

Nora snorts while Alex nuzzles more firmly against Henry's chest. “Well it’s not like _I_ can really ask him about it because _I’m_ allergic to _assholes_ , so I guess—”

This is the point at which June claps a hand to her mouth, pointing. Her eyes fill with very sudden, very startling, tears.

Alex and Henry both turn around. There is a parabolic microphone with a barely-discernible local TV logo pointing at the window from a sad little shrubbery and lamppost near the street, and crouched next to it is a man scribbling on a notepad and grinning like an idiot.

Fuuuuuck.

Nora grabs the laptop out of the bag at her feet and starts typing so fast Alex starts expecting smoke.

\--

The good news is, Alex fucking Bea is no longer a story anyone is going to want to tell.

The bad news is …everything else.

“Jesus Christ, Diaz,” his mom is saying. It’s been three very confusing minutes since June noticed the mike.

“Hey, almost none of this was me. I was not the one who said—”

“You put your poor sweetie in the window, and don’t tell me sitting there was his idea.”

This, to Alex’s extreme irritation, is an excellent point.

Damn it.

“You think all these assholes can be paid not to run with it?” Alex asks.

“You think I can actually advise you to do anything remotely similar to that plan?”

“No,” Henry says, “but I can. Keeping secrets is the royal way. Obviously.” He shakes his head. “But to do it I’d have to deal with the treasury, which is going to involve explaining why I am paying off a large swath of the American media with Crown funds, and I think I might rather experience radical separation from my own skin.”

“I would not rather that,” Alex says. “Also, ew.”

“Well, we’re going to have to call your family anyway,” Ellen says. “Their PR people need to know what’s coming.”

“I hate being a prince,” Henry says to no one in particular. Alex completely concurs: it’s the worst.

Nora raises one hand, still typing about as fast as regular people do two-handed with the other. “So, I’m in and I found that asshole’s email, so I’m fucking up his ability to send right now. Depending on whether their security bots are more, like, BB8 or Number Five, I might be able to at least bring down their whole networks for a little while? Give us more time to work it all out?”

Alex’s dad, who has only been here for about five minutes and is still untangling pieces of the story and handing out tacos because he stopped at the only food truck in the vicinity he deems acceptable and everyone’s missed dinner, purses his lips, then nods at her. “You should give it your best shot, then. ‘Bout time you use that fancy computering degree to fuck with the press.” He winks at her as she hops up and goes to dig her other tablet out of her bag and hands it to June with a series of instructions, then looks at Alex. “Mijo, you have _the most interesting_ life. It’s like a Chinese curse, only it never ends.”

“Pretty sure that’s racist, Dad.” June doesn’t look up while she says it, but their dad offers a who-me shrug anyway.

Alex shakes his head and offers a general _fuck me sideways_ to the universe and/or room, and picks up his phone. He is starting with Bea, for three reasons: she probably _won't_ send anyone from the palace staff to murder him before they hang up; she probably _will_ have some useful advice; and she will probably laugh for five minutes at the entire microphone situation and he really needs that.

\--

"So, you feel this information is legitimate, do you?" Philip's face gives away nothing and Alex just does. not. get. how it is that when Henry goes noble and stiff-upper-lip, it's the hottest fucking thing in the world, and when Philip, whom Henry significantly resembles, does the exact same thing he looks like a stuffy stupid asshole, but there it is. He looks across at Henry, who has in fact gone stone-face hot but is also clinging to David across his lap, which sort of breaks Alex’s heart. David can obviously tell his job is comfort blanket and is nuzzling at Henry’s hand and snerfling into his elbow without complaint. 

"Nora says she found it almost two years ago. She's been keeping an eye on it, and it seems very consistent." That's June speaking, because Alex wants to break Philip's neck for giving Henry a hard time, and because June is pretty calm and Alex is opposite-of. "Are you saying it's not? Are you saying you definitely don’t have a secret kid you haven’t introduced to, you know, anyone?"

"I hardly think a Skype conversation is the place for a discussion of the royal bloodline. Also, you have no standing to ask such a thing."

Annnnd that's enough calm. "I mean, I hardly think a woman _also named Martha_ in Essex is the place for your royal semen," Alex says, "but I guess standing is definitely more relevant. Hey, I’m your almost brother-in-law, is that enough standing? Do I have standing? Because I’m positive you’ve given me a number of helpful tips on how to be a suitable member of the household."

Philip says nothing.

"Cool, well, whether it's true or even possible has a lot to do with how hard I have to work to not break your nose when I see you next, so like, maybe we can move to that?"

"Threats of violence, Alexander? My, how we all misjudged you." Philip purses his lips as though he’s considering how to excommunicate Alex for the offense or something.

What. A. dick. Now Alex goes with silence because swearing in Spanish probably won't help. Although probably the words show on his face. Henry has moved past simple Definite Beheadings to Fratricide In The Offing, but he's keeping his mouth shut, too. Alex wonders if the laptop is going to explode from all the glaring it’s transmitting, but it’s all anyone does for a long, long thirty seconds or so.

"Father's death was difficult for us all," Philip finally says. "And I may have made some inappropriate choices."

"OK, so does Martha the Second know?"

"I didn't say siring a child—"

" _Siring_?" Now Henry does turn the screen to himself. "He's a human child, Philip, not a colt. I hope when you discuss the topic with your current wife you manage to sound like an actual person who has feelings, and for the love of _God_ I hope you actually do _have_ feelings if you’re going to parent children at some point. Christ."

"I have not confirmed the child was mine."

"And yet you support his mother, manage a fund for his eventual start in life, and keep him a secret?" Henry's eyes narrow. "And I notice you've only just said you didn't confirm, not that you've denied."

Philip sighs deeply, finally dropping the iron-face look and just looking tired and put-out. "I need to have a conversation with my wife."

" _You think?_ " Alex asks, but Henry puts up a hand and David actually drops to the floor to come over and sit on Alex’s feet, big eyes looking up for ear scratches. He’s kind of an expert at helping both of them chill out. 

"Philip, Father's death was hard, and I'm sorry that was true for you as well, but regardless, that this was in the world and you chose to interact with us the way you did... perhaps it would be best if we scheduled separate times with Mother for the holidays this year. We'll be there on the twenty-third, staying a week; I assume you'll be urgently in Zimbabwe or Peru. Just you; we’d love to see Martha."

Philip presses his lips together, then starts, "I believe you asserted that your Nora had made arran--"

"Nora is her own person, thanks," Nora puts in from Alex's left. “And she can release the fucking hounds at will, so try again.”

"I apologize. How long have I got, before the papers break this?"

"I doubt I can keep breaking their shit for more than another hour or so. Maybe two if I feel charitable enough to work real hard. And I can't guarantee someone won't, like Morse-code it out on WoW or something, so you might have five minutes. Can't really say. You might want to order something _really special_ for your wife right this second, is what I'm saying. Also, you dipshit your brother, your own flesh and blood, is standing here asking you for an apology, so maybe--"

"I understand." Philip takes a deep breath. "It seems all I do, any more, but Alex, Henry, I do apologize for my previous behavior, and I see how in the light of this new information it seems particularly egregious."

Henry says nothing, and Alex can see it's because he can't, but Alex sticks his face in front of the screen again. "Great. Have a good time in Argentina, and we'll see if next year goes better."

He ends the call.

Henry brings his feet up onto the couch edge and leans his head back almost to the wall. David returns to his side and smushes his nose against his face.

Alex goes to his other side and makes eyes at June to go see how their mom did talking to Katherine.

\--

"So, not that this is the main thing, but asking Bea to carry an entire kid for you?" June asks, finishing her third of the crazy purple drinks and lolling her head toward Alex, who's on his fourth (but Henry has drunk at least one in bits and parts so he's probably actually behind) and equally lolling. They're on the couch proper now, waiting for the UK papers to go apeshit and the US ones to be super pissed that their juicy story about the president's son has been completely pre-empted by a giant royal scandal involving super shitty ideas about fertility and privacy-imploding assertions about secret babies. Gross.

"Huh?"

"Bea, carrying a kid?"

"I mean, it could go the other way? But we figured if we asked you, dickwads could claim it was The Mexicans Having Anchor Babies, only in England? Plus you have the California Boy--"

"His name is Chad," June says.

"Seriously? California _Boy_ is less generic. But okay. You have California Chad, and I have no idea if that's a serious thing or just, like, a worthwhile dick thing? And Bea is really clear she doesn't want to raise kids. Plus, it was an idea we'd kicked around with her way back, because then Henry would be the person raising the child, so royal, and she would be the biomom, so royal, and I'd be the sperm donor, not royal, but still the overall kid would be majority royal. Plus since now there is no stupid rule keeping girls out of the line of succession, this would basically eliminate any competition about whether her or Henry's children were next and so on. I mean, that's her logic, and I think Henry's on board with it, but not yet because, and I realize today has not been the picture of academic pursuit, but like, _law school_."

"Yeah, okay, makes sense. Still, you know if it was all important as far as, like, it being Henry's blood and also yours because of archaic rules, you know I'd do it, right? Even though those rules are stupid because families are made out of love not zygotes."

"Bug, I _do_ know, but like five? I don’t know what time it is. Five hours ago you said I owe you for your missed orgasms. I'm pretty sure I don't want to know the cost for the other thing."

"Yeah, okay. Fair." She struggles upright and offers him a hand. It turns out it's almost midnight, so he's feeling a big need to find Henry and make sure they're not ending the day mad somehow. Also, if nothing else he probably needs some water, and she definitely does. Thank fuck there's still another day in this weekend. Although honestly if it's like today Alex is going to die of ordinary weekend, and that's not how he wants to go out. 

\--

Finally, the worst is over.

Finally, the _Mail_ has had its moment and _USA Today_ has piled on, and Alex got to tell the TMZ guy to fuck himself in three languages (tell him in three; presumably the act is universal?) and everyone has talked and June went to see if California Chad was up for some 3am boinking and Mom went back to talk to the Asia people. Dad stuck around for a while restocking the freezer with enchiladas and carnitas and a handful of important sauces, which isn't as good as the fresh elotes and sangria he makes when they’re eating together but Alex will take what he can get; comfort food is important.

Finally, everyone has gone, the door is rebuilt, the Secret Service has helped all the paps remember that not getting their cameras confiscated is good for business, and Alex and Henry are sitting up in bed, leaned back against the headboard and both staring at the far wall. David has been put to bed in the adjacent room with a fresh rawhide bone and quiet old-school country music playing on the radio to keep him company because it’s his hilarious favorite.

"D'you think Philip will be okay?" Henry finally asks.

"I guess I'm more concerned about Martha, although I figure Bea will see to her."

"She will. Plus, Martha's no one's fool. She probably did already have an inkling, if Nora had dug it up. God, I hope."

"You think it's his kid?"

"Probably. The photograph was fairly convincing. The other choice that comes to mind is fucking worse because it’s that I have an additional brother that only Philip knew about and he kept it secret for propriety reasons, and like, no offense to Martha, but I hate that one more."

Alex is silent, largely because he is totally wiped and, he will deny this if it's repeated, words have become unaccountably hard. But he also closes his eyes and sends up thoughts at whatever kind of deity or astral plane being might be in the area that it really can’t be that one.

Finally, Henry speaks again. "Do you know, my life used to be quiet? I mean, boring and sad and extremely proper, but mostly quiet."

"Except when Pez was in the house."

"Except then, but honestly, _even_ then."

Alex looks over at him. "And so you have regrets?"

Henry turns slowly, then shakes his head, just as slow. "Not any. Not _any_."

"You think when we _do_ decide to have kids this will mean the papers will skip the story because they got burned this time?"

"No." Henry sounds very firm.

"Oh?"

"I have stood in the line at the supermarket, Alexander, and while that is a rarity for me, I did have time to assess the front pages of the various publications sold there. There is no line they will not cross."

"But still no regrets?" Alex is impelled to just make sure, even if makes him needy and absurd.

Henry's eyes go soft and he pulls up a grin that is so genuine despite his clear exhaustion that Alex almost melts where he sits. "God, no." He leans over and sets his head on Alex's shoulder. "Wouldn't trade you for the world."

"Yeah, me too." Alex stares at the wall some more. "Jesus, when did I get old? All I was thinking when I wanted everyone to go away and you were doing your Definite Beheadings face was that I wanted to drag you to bed and do very dirty things."

"My Definite Beheadings face? I feel that I need to know more."

"It's a thing. I'll tell you about it some time when there is no one who actually needs immediate beheading. But now I'm too exhausted to even turn and face you, much less fuck you into the mattress." Alex lets his head drop onto Henry's, rubbing his ear against Henry's temple. "Ugh."

They fall asleep like that, and wake up at five in the morning with cricks in their necks and weird wrinkle lines on their faces.

Henry pulls Alex down under the duvet and makes him stay in bed. Even though there is property law to be studied. Alex lets himself be pulled. Two hours is not enough sleep even for him. 

\--

"H?" Alex calls up the stairs. There's no answer, so he takes the waffles and coffee and goes up.

Henry has fallen back asleep, again, tangled up in the duvet, and his hair is standing up in an act of extreme disobedience to royal expectations and Alex can't even. "Hey," he says quietly. He holds up the newspaper which has a headline about Philip and no royal denial.

"Wot?" Henry blinks open and tries to sit up, dislodging David who has apparently crawled in under the blankets where Alex was an hour ago, and nearly knocking over the laptop he'd apparently been starting to watch the news on. "Oh, so he admits. Okay. Wait, what time—are those waffles?" David slinks off the bed, where he is not supposed to be because he _has_ a doggy bed, actually three, and he completely knows better. He seems very not-sorry though, probably because Henry is terrible at reminding him of the rules because he loves him. Well, there are worse things. Alex turns his attention back to Henry.

And this? This is what the weekend was supposed to look like. Property law, waffles, and tousle-haired princes looking adorably ruffled and pink, and a great big nothing where paparazzi and other assholes want and try to be on the regular. Yes, this.

Port Charles can go fuck itself, Alex is not living in a fucking soap opera. He sets the waffles on the side table and strips his clothes all back off, then slides in next to Henry and picks up the tray. "Your Highness," he says, offering a sliced-off corner he's just dipped in syrup and balanced a strawberry upon, "I come bearing waffles."

Henry opens up for the bite, takes the tray, and offers a bite to Alex. "You do?"

"What?"

Henry stuffs the waffle in while Alex's mouth is open, and says, "Come?" And because he is a sneaky and athletic and very much smoother-than-Alex person, he’s somehow managed to slide a hand into place for a filthy caress and squeeze of Alex’s balls at the same time. 

Alex coughs. "I revise my earlier assessment."

"What earlier assessment?"

"About this weekend. I was thinking, a minute ago, that it had finally reverted to how it was supposed to be: all about a little bit of homework and a lot of waffles and rumpled pink princes, but like, I can be persuaded that sex should be on the table, too."

Henry grins at him, lighter than he's been in a while now that literally none of the mad attention of the press is upon them. "Bearing waffles _and_ on the table? The scandal. What will the press say, when they get hold of this?"

Alex offers another bite. "Baby, if it makes you happy, I will suck your dick anywhere and any time that isn't patently illegal, but just for today? Let's keep it in the bedroom. If the media are going to go batshit over our sex lives, again, I'm waiting until they're all packed up and back in their ratholes just to make it difficult for them to get here."

Henry nods. "Good plan." He puts together another bite for Alex and adds, "But first, waffles."

"Priorities," Alex agrees, very seriously. "Let's see. Top priority, deliciousness."

"Energy," Henry corrects with a waggled finger. "The delicious bit, we'll get to next." He holds the plate in one hand and straddles Alex's thighs, squeezing with those horseback-riding power muscles that are surprisingly solid even when the rest of him looks so soft. Yeah, maybe they'll need to go with photosynthesis for their immediate energy needs.

"...so how do you feel about reheated waffles?" Alex asks, taking the plate and setting it back on the side table. "Because I? Am developing an instant affinity."

Henry rubs his chin with his thumb and forefinger. "Perhaps it would be worth exploring," he agrees.

Alex pulls him in close and turns them, flinging the duvet over their heads, and he explores, placing sloppy wet kisses down Henry’s heated chest and stopping to let whisker scruff scratch into the tender skin at the join of thigh and trunk. Henry, satisfyingly, makes a noise that has no words and a lot of feelings, and Alex grins.

Yeah, whatever, maybe he's going to graduate tenth in his class instead. This is about priorities.

**Author's Note:**

> Tag notes:
> 
> Secret child: exists, and is the source of media drama, but is not Henry or Alex's child.
> 
> Fertility/pregnancy: Someone off-screen is trying to get pregnant, which is story-relevant but is not presented as particularly painful or fraught.
> 
> Paparazzi, media nightmare, and eavesdropping: is definitely not worse than canon-typical, even though this amount of intrusion would give me the extreme hives, ugh.


End file.
